Awesome day to learn new things

It was a wonderful day off for me today and I spent it at the Fly Fish Texas, only the biggest event for Fly Fishermen in the state and the perfect place to learn about a cool new sport if you ask me.

For me, its been well over 25 years since I've done the normal bait style fishing and I've never Fly Fished a day in my life. So when I found out about the free seminars on the subject, I jumped at the chance to head down to Athens, Texas and see what I could learn.

For starters its not a cheap hobby or sport at all, but at the same time you don't have to go way overboard to get in on this. What I do recommend it checking with local clubs and learning a bit about it before you run out and buy a bunch of equipment though.

After the day was done, I pretty much learned what I should look for in gear to get started. I learned how to create/tie my very own fly for casting and received some instructions on the basics of Fly Casting.

Its a totally different way of fishing and looks to be a lot of fun if you ask me. This is something I think I could really enjoy and perhaps the whole family might enjoy learning as well. At least for me I had a great time and it was something I could learn to do fairly well I think.

Who needs Tivo?

Thanks to a really good friend of mine, letting me borrow his ATI TV Wonder 600 USB digital tuner/capture device, I'm able to really make use of my Windows Media Center features now. Simply put... WOW!

The quality is way better than what I had expected from what looks like a jump drive with a Cable Antenna growing out of it. The Media Center had no problems picking up the device and located all of the channels I really wanted too. It didn't find every channel in my area available, but I'm only needing Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC really.

I set it up to record tonights showing of 24 and will be checking that out via the Media Center Extender and my Xbox 360 later tonight. Something else I was impressed with was the ability to not only see my recordings, I could actually watch a live broadcast feed through the extender and all at perfect quality.

So it looks like I can totally pass up on purchasing a Tivo box and paying for their fees. In order to record more than one broadcast, I simply need to purchase a second USB card if I feel the need for that. We could also just watch one show of the shows live and let the other be recorded.

So I'm doing ok with cutting off access to Cable and Satelite service so far and only missiong a small portion of programming. Not a bad way to save some money if you ask me.

Netflix For The Win!

A week without Uverse is almost complete and all is doing fine. I don't want to use the word addiction here, but I have to say that which was very familiar is hard to break away from. I've already thought about searching for a couple things for starters or using the multiview sports channels, only to remember that none of that is available anymore.

Recording shows, only to watch them later is another feature I some what miss, but I've done alright watching them on the web for now. So I don't get to see them on the big TV, but its not like I have to totally be with out a show I like and I do alright on the small PC screen. Later we might see about getting Tivo for the Over The Air broadcasts and I'm sure we'll enjoy those features again.

What's been great is Netflix and having it hooked up with Xbox Live and now available through the Blu-ray player we just purchased. We are finding a number of shows for the whole family to enjoy. We are on the one DVD out at time plan and watch as much as we want On Demand. I'm finding shows I've either missed or new shows to watch now.

We can watch these shows on the Big TV or via the computer if we like. I've even loaded up some kid shows for the TV to stream and watched a 2nd feed of something I'd prefer myself via the home computer, headphones work great for this by the way.

So its not all that bad, just takes some getting use to in the end and we should save some money or at least free up funds to be used in a few other areas. In the end I'm only missing a minor number of shows perhaps and its really not worth the cost in my mind right now.

Catch you later Uverse

Ok, in all fairness I'm still using a portion of their services. As it stands now I'm on Internet Only terms with a very acceptable 6mb down. Its what I've been use to and I'm saying goodbye to their TV services.

I've had enough and tried to deal with their problems. In the end they could not provide a 5.1 digital audio feed for any of their HD programs and I've paid way to much to deal with the constant drops in Audio.

I so loved the Home DVR and having access to two HD streams and two regular for DVR recordings, but at the end of the day and listening to drops in signals from Live or DVR recordings, enough is enough.

I'd have a better experience with my over the air feeds in this case. I'm also using Netflix and have found a number of programs available to watch via Xbox Live or on my PC. Down the road I might decide to pick something up and more and likely I'll be heading back to DirecTV, but for now I think its best to just cut it out all together.

What a past week here

Wow its been sometime for me to write on my blog. I was looking back at the numbers and last year appeared to be my lowest number of writings for my personal blog. On the other side of things I did turn out some stuff on my personal game blog and wrote quite a bit for RejectedGamer.Com as well.

I'll have to see what I can do to pick up and write a bit more here on my personal blog and get my numbers back up. So what's new with me? Staying busy as ever, which is a good thing I think. We just came off one of the biggest Snow Storms I've ever seen here in Texas, about a foot of snow when all was said and done I think. The last time it snowed anywhere close to this... well I wasn't even born then.

The weather did manage to knock out our power for about 3 full days and it had us staying away from the home with other family. At least it didn't really Ice here, that's what we normally get here in Texas. A nice thick sheet of ice and the people around here can't drive on this stuff. Shoot, people can't even drive here when it rains sometimes.

Well I just saw the latest weather report and it looks like we might have more snow coming again. This last batch has finally melted all away and we might get more snow now. I'm just not sure I want another foot of snow, but I'll take it over the ice any day.

What is Google Wave?

Its new from Google and a bit different for sure. Sure this is more an likely not meant for everyone to use an try. Its not going to replace e-mails at all. But for a planning tool, this could be worth a try and come in handy if a whole team is using it.

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2009 World Series Champions